title: Socioeconomic and early-life factors and risk of being overweight or obese in children of Swedish- and foreign-born parents.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Ethnic minorities/immigrants have differential health as compared with natives. The epidemic in child overweight/obesity (OW/OB) in Sweden is leveling off, but lower socioeconomic groups and immigrants/ethnic minorities may not have benefited equally from this trend. We investigated whether nonethnic Swedish children are at increased risk for being OW/OB and whether these associations are mediated by parental socioeconomic position (SEP) and/or early-life factors such as birth weight, maternal smoking, BMI, and breastfeeding.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data on 10,628 singleton children (51% boys, mean age: 4.8 y, born during the period 2000-2004) residing in Uppsala were analyzed. OW/OB was computed using the International Obesity Task Force's sex- and age-specific cutoffs. The mother's nativity was used as proxy for ethnicity. Logistic regression was used to analyze ethnicity-OW/OB associations.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Children of North African, Iranian, South American, and Turkish ethnicity had increased odds for being overweight/obese as compared with children of Swedish ethnicity (adjusted odds ratio (OR): 2.60 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.57-4.27), 1.67 (1.03-2.72), 3.00 (1.86-4.80), and 2.90 (1.73-4.88), respectively). Finnish children had decreased odds for being overweight/obese (adjusted OR: 0.53 (0.32-0.90)).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Ethnic differences in a child's risk for OW/OB exist in Sweden that cannot be explained by SEP or maternal or birth factors. As OW/OB often tracks into adulthood, more effective public health policies that intervene at an early age are needed.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Health Equity Studies, Karolinska Institutet/Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. amal.khanolkar@ki.se
authors.forename: Amal R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Khanolkar
authors.forename: Ulla
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Sovio
authors.forename: Jonathan W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Bartlett
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wallby
authors.forename: Ilona
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Koupil
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000352:Africa, Northern / Q000208:ethnology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland / Q000208:ethnology; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D009765:Obesity / Q000208:ethnology*; D016017:Odds Ratio; D050177:Overweight / Q000208:ethnology*; D015995:Prevalence; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013020:South America / Q000208:ethnology; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology; D014421:Turkey / Q000208:ethnology